Our Mission
The Jesuit Volunteer Corps, in collaboration with the Society of Jesus, enhances the capacity of local organizations to serve their communities by providing Jesuit Volunteers to directly serve the poor and marginalized in the U.S. and developing countries. For a year or more Jesuit Volunteers live simply, in community, immersed in Ignatian Spirituality. The experience opens the JV to be conscious of the poor, attuned to the causes of social injustice, and dedicated to service informed by faith. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps helps Former Jesuit Volunteers nurture this orientation throughout their lives.
Our Values
Our organization is based on four core values:
Spirituality
Core to the JVC experience is an open, honest engagement with spirituality and faith. The JVC program facilitates prayer, retreats, and other activities grounded in the Catholic, Ignatian tradition. JVC creates opportunities for Jesuit Volunteers to reflect on their commitment to God and social justice, find God in all things, and put their faith into action through service for the rest of their lives.
Simple Living
JVC creates valuable opportunities for Jesuit Volunteers to live a simple, practical life. Their basic needs met and living in solidarity with people who are poor and marginalized, they separate needs from wants and gain freedom from the material. As part of a supportive community, they learn to prioritize, put people before things, and make deliberate, intentional decisions about how to use their time, money, and talents. The JVC experience is a chance for JVs to reflect on simple living, define it in their own terms, and explore how to carry it into their lives.
Community
JVC creates intentional communities that help people broaden their perspectives and confront boundaries. During their service, Jesuit Volunteers are placed in peer communities that foster spiritual growth and engagement. JVs share meals, reflect and pray together, and live among the people they serve. They challenge and support one another, gain new insight into the realities of poverty and injustice, and commit to a lifetime of advocacy and service. By fostering communities built on accountability, respect, and mutual support, JVC helps JVs understand their place in the world, and how they’ll engage with it.
Social Justice
JVC makes a real impact in the world by increasing the capacity of local organizations to provide direct service to people who are poor or marginalized. JVC places Jesuit Volunteers alongside those who are disenfranchised so that they come to understand the realities of poverty and injustice faced by much of the world. They are transformed through reflection on these experiences, and by the close interpersonal relationships they form with those they serve. The JVC experience brings a global perspective on living and seeing the world that becomes a part of those who serve, and they spend their lives advocating for compassion, fair treatment, and structural change that addresses the root causes of injustice.
Read more about social justice and the Catholic Church in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.
